new moon
by MischievousHeart
Summary: There always will be fear. Fewer and fewer children still believe in them. But why? Growing stronger by the fear of the guardians themselves, a shadow lurks in the darkness, waiting to return in Manny's weakest hour: new moon. [contains OC, ooc characters (lack of information), bad writer, Jack-centric, not yet decided if friendship or romance (doesn't affect the story)]
1. 00: prologue night 1

**00: Prologue/Night 1**

_It was dark. Dark and cold. _

_But not the cold he enjoyed, no, the cold of uselessness and loneliness. The cold he abandoned years ago._

_Dark, almost black. Pitch black. _

_Even the stars seemed less bright than usual, flickering sad as if they were to die soon._

_No moon illuminated the night, even his precious snow didn't have enough power to reflect the dimmed light of the stars._

Jack startled. He was breathing heavily which gave him a very odd feeling. As if he just woke up from a nightmare. _Nightmare. _No, it couldn't be. He was a spirit, a guardian by now, he was immortal. He didn't really need to sleep, spirits like him would only sleep after releasing an immense amount of power. Last time he really had to sleep was after their fight against Pitch. Sure, he slept now and then but only when he got bored from his duties and there weren't any children around to play with.

Jack caught a glimpse of the moon, which had the shape of a semi circle by now, just to make sure it was still there. Then he realized the storm, which was approaching the town nearby. Not remembering having called such a blizzard, the boy quickly used his powers to call back the freezing wind and icy flakes. He had promised the children of the town a snowday tomorrow, but one they could enjoy by sledding and having snowball fights, not one they had to spend at home.

With a confused look on his face the young guardian jumped of the tree he was resting on onto the snow covered ground.

"What was that" He asked, slowly turning his face towards the moon.

"Why am I even asking you." _You don't even think of giving me an answer anyway, do you? You never do. _Jack continued in his head, not willing to upset the moon, even though he was still mad at him for keeping him guessing over the past three centuries.

Now, to his great surprise, the man in the moon decided otherwise.

A small ray of light, almost too weak to be noticed, fell on the ground, directing the youngest guardian to a small, black hole. The hole, barely big enough for the immortal teen to jump in, seemed very… _unpleasant. _But somehow it reminded him of the holes Bunnymund used to travel around the world.

"You serious?" Jack asked the man in the moon, even though he already knew the answer.

"Alright, but just this one time." And Jack Frost, rolling his eyes, let himself falling down the rabbit hole.

He still had some months. Enough time to prepare everything, but you never know. Some eggs, just test subjects he produced during his maintenance work, jumped around joyfully, as he kept lifting the flowers to make sure they weren't damaged.

The bunny hopped around, inspecting every single plant, his "egg machines", as he did every year at this season. It wouldn't be so long till they had to work to their limits producing eggs and colouring them in every thinkable way.

The long ears stiffed when a sudden, playful cry echoed through the tunnels. Bunnymund, knowing the voice just _too_ well, rolled his eyes. Only moments later he could see a familiar figure in the corner of his eyes.

"What do you want, mate?" The bunny asked, not able to fully cover the annoyance in his voice.

"Oh, nothing, I'm just wandering around a little bit, freezing stuff…" The boy replied in a sharp tone. He wore a dry grin on his face.

"Fine, then why don't you walk off and bother someone else, mate?"

Jack shrugged, He was used to have arguments with the Easter bunny. It always took a couple of hours or a big danger till they got along. And when they finally did, they actually liked talking to each other.

"Okay, so I'll tell the moon you weren't interested."

"Wa-wait! The man in the moon sent you here?!" Now that was a surprise to the furry pooka.

"He did." Stated Jack.

"Why, mate?"

"I have no idea. He only opened one of your tunnels for me. Thought you had something to tell me, not vice versa." Bunnymund narrowed his eyes. He finally dropped his maintenance work and walked up to the young guardian who couldn't resist freezing one of the Easter bunny's test eggs.

"Stop that, mate! We have to see North."

Said man was standing in front of the globe. A frown darkened his normally happy and warm expression. He observed the globe quietly, sunken deep into his thoughts.

It worried him. He already informed Bunny and Tooth but he didn't dare to tell Jack anything about it – he was too afraid of loosing the teen. By lose he meant not his presence, but his mind. The poor boy lived for three hundred years without being seen, having someone to talk to or to share his worries, three centuries without being loved by anyone. But then, only seven years ago, he finally found what he longing for all this time: a family and people who were able to see him.

So how, how should he be able to tell the winterspirit that the children slowly stopped believing in them? How should he tell the youngest guardian that so many children lost faith, jus such a short time after they started to believe in him?

A soft sigh escaped his thin lips when a hole opened about three meters beside the place he was standing on. And to his surprise the boy he just thought of and his big bunny-friend appeared.

Looking at his fellow guardians, he spoke cheerfully, in his wide Russian accent: "Bunny, Jack, what are you doing here my friends?"

_**And this will also be the one and only author's note in this fanfic, because I hate author's notes. And I also won't be begging for reviews all the time. **_

_**Oh, I'm so sorry. I'm a terrible writer. This is my first attempt to write in English.**_

_**I've only seen the movie so there could be some misunderstandings. I tried to find out as much about the characters and their background stories as possible, but I couldn't always find what I was looking for.**_

_**And the story, well… If you're really a fan of the books, don't read this. It's almost AU.**_

_**Friendship or romance? Not decided yet. (Help?)**_

_**You're probably all bored and raging about all the Mary-Sue fanfics, but I really tried to keep it Jack centric. So as an OC-fanfic writer, I'll do my best to avoid making OCs Mary-Sueish, I promise!**_

_**I would appreciate if you correct my mistakes, after all we all want to improve, right? **_

_**The prologue is short, the next chapters will be longer. **_

_**Please enjoy (as far as you can!)**_


	2. 01: The Loss

**01: chapter one: The Loss**

The old-looking, yet you-hearted man greeted his friends by patting them lightly on their shoulders, both at the same time. The two arrivals returned the gesture smiling, happy to see their old friend again. Since there weren't any big dangers around during the last seven years they didn't find many occasions to meet each other.

Jack and North could be sure to meet on Christmas Eve since snow and Christmas somehow belonged to each other. It also wasn't such a big deal to run across tooth. After they had to pick up the children's teeth when the fairies got captured, tooth began to work external again.

And Sandy, well, Jack had to admit that he cheated a little bit. They got along pretty well, even before their fight against the boogeyman the winter spirit liked to watch the sandman doing his work. Now they met at least once a month "by accident", but more often because Jack wouldn't miss to look out for the little golden man.

The unlucky one under the five was definitely Bunnymund. Christmas and Easter were contradicting, not just because of the arguments about which was more important, and so were snow and Easter, at least in the bunny's opinion. It was not that he disliked his solitude- if you may name it that way- he just grew found of the other guardians, especially over the past decade. He enjoyed their company way more than he would admit.

The three guardians exchanged some stories, a procedure that became a tradition over the years. But they kept it short as they all felt a tension in the air.

"So, what brings you two here to my workshop?" North asked, not even trying to conceal the concerned curiosity in his voice. A brief moment of silence followed, only disturbed by the footsteps of the tiny elves who ran across the workshop doing, well… Nothing really.

Finally, it was the Easter Bunny who made the first step. "I think something is wrong, mate. Manny sent Jack to me."

"Man in moon?" A sight escaped the bearded man. He gazed out of the window beside the huge globe while stroking over said beard. The moon wasn't to be seen yet, the day hadn't fully ended yet and the silver-white, shining circle wouldn't appear until a few hours later.

This reaction confused Jack. When did North become so serious? There wasn't any threat out there, right? They would have told him. Maybe the guardian of wonder was just stressed, Christmas was around the corner.

The teenage spirit observed the huge globe behind the red dressed man. The familiar yellowish lights flickered all over the world, as usual. Nothing strange, so why had Santa such a worried look on his face?

The man in the moon didn't talk to them very often that was for sure. Especially not to him, Jack Frost. But it couldn't be that serious, after all nothing strange happened but the dream…

_The dream._

Sure, how could he forget? Jack slapped on his forehead. He had to tell them, it had to be the reason why the man in the moon sent him here. At least there was nothing else that happened and felt important to him. The teen in the blue hoodie turned back to the grey bunny, but the furry guardian was faster: "Do you think it has anything to do with the loss?"

"I don't know, but we have to accept fact that it might have-"

"The loss?" The elder guardians gazed over to their youngest member. The bunny in surprise and North with a strange look in his eyes. It almost looked as if he felt guilty about something.

"You… You haven't told him, mate?" Bunnymund looked over to the white haired man who didn't seem pleased with the situation, not at all.

"Told me? Didn't tell me what?" Jack starred at his friends, demanding for an answer. So they did keep something from him. It was only a short moment when he felt an old bitterness coming up. And suddenly it was gone again.

"I'm sorry, Jack. It was for your own good."

"For my own good? What kind of thing would be for _my own good_ if I don't know about it? What is it that makes you look like an old man?" He could feel his voice growing louder but there was nothing he could do against it. Something made him feel very uncomfortable. He didn't know what it was, maybe the look on his friends faces, maybe really that they kept something secret or maybe it was just the strange dream which still gave him the chills.

"The loss. What is _the loss_?"

"Something terrible, mate. The loss of believers."

It took the frosty teen a moment to realize what Bunnymund just said, a moment of back-breaking silence.

"Wha… What…?!" Jack nearly screamed when the information finally had leaked out. The other two could only exchange a look of concern as the young guardian started walking around, holding his staff in the right hand, running the other through the silver-white hair as he looked around in horror.

He made it. For 300 years he struggled to make people see him and now, when some of them finally did and the number even increased every day, they told him that he was going to lose everything again. Seven years. What were seven years of happiness and love, compared to 300 years of loneliness, agony and the fear of never being seen by anyone?

Of course he still had much fun over these years, but there were also these feelings he hid deep within his heart. He never told the others about it. He trusted them, they were his family, and he would die to protect them. But still, he wasn't ready to show them the depths of his cold yet unbelievable heart.

"Look, we're sorry, Jack. But there are more important things right now. We have to find out why or who makes the children loose their hopes and dreams." North paused, maybe waiting for anyone to agree with him. Not getting the answer he waited for, the old man cleared his throat and continued his little speech.

"We can't wait any longer, who knows how many light will be still twinkling tomorrow? Even man in moon sent you here, must be urgent. I can feel it. In my belly. And you better trust my belly this time." He glanced over to the tall grey bunny, not hiding the accusation.

Bunnymund only rolled his eyes, but a crooked grin appeared right after on his face. "Alright, life becomes excited again. I'll be doing research in my area." And he tapped on the floor three times.

"See you later, mate!" And within a second he vanished through the floor.

"Well, he's in a hurry. And we should be too. I'll call Sandy and Tooth." With that, the Santa just walked off.

"Wait, what about me?" Jack wondered how they could act like this and even look like they had some kind of _fun_. He was the one supposed to make people have fun, but at the moment the shock made him feel numb. No fun in sight.

North peered over to the boy and seemed to understand his discomfort. At least after he analyzed every single par of the white haired's face.

"You see, the past few years were rather… Boring. We didn't have to deal with any threat, we didn't have to watch out for blizzards on Christmas eve", North couldn't resist to wink at Jack, "so to be able to follow our bigger duties as guardians again makes most of us feel happy and excited. Speaking of duties… Shouldn't you be out there causing snow days for your favorite children?"

Once again, the guardian of wonder showed how much of a father figure he was to Jack and the other guardians. He never failed to cheer them up, or at least make them see everything in a better light.

"Alright, you got me. I'll let the snow swallow the streets, and maybe Jamie knows what's wrong with the kids." And he was out of the workshop; the wind carried him through the window above the globe, back to his "home", where everything began.

But the smile he put on faded as soon as it had come; he hated it. He simply hated it. That fake smile… Whenever he pretended that nothing was wrong or everything was going to be alright, he wore that smile. And he couldn't stand it. It made him feel like a cheater, almost like a liar. He never wanted to lie to anyone. Never.

Deeply sunken in his thoughts he didn't realize that there was growing something inside his chest. Deep within the teen, a dark feeling, first only having the size of a small grain of sand, started turning into a dark hole, sucking in all his bad feelings. And it grew bigger every second he spent worrying.

It wasn't only the darkness who stayed unnoticed; also Jacks strange dream was almost forgotten by now.

_**Merry Christmas!**_


End file.
